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muad_dibber@lemmygrad.ml

Setting aside the nonsense about Soviet tactics, this article is very revealing. (www.telegraph.co.uk)

submitted 6 days ago by yogthos@lemmygrad.ml to c/technology@lemmygrad.ml

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Turns out that cheap and reliable weapons that Russia is able to pump out in mass quantities work a lot better than fancy artisanally produced NATO weapons.

https://archive.ph/jW2xn

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[–] AlbigensianGhoul@lemmygrad.ml 18 points 5 days ago (1 children)

So much about "expensive weaponry", so little about "effective weaponry". If your tool (in this case, of war) is described in terms only of its cost and not of its effectiveness, you may have a commodity fetishization issue going on there.

There's a reason the AK rifle is the most popular in the world, and it's definitely not its massive price tag.

Sources said Ukrainian troops had repeatedly abandoned Javelin missile command launch units (CLU), which can be re-used and reportedly cost more than $100,000 (£80,000), on the battlefield as Kyiv’s military allegedly retains a Soviet-style, semi-disposable outlook towards its equipment and weapons.

This reminds me of gun nuts being in more danger than normal folks in countries where guns are illegal because they're so valuable.

Russian doctrine

Emphasis on massive firepower over manoeuvrability and precision attacks. Although units do support each other, they do not prioritise coordinating assaults with rapid, spontaneous cooperation. Troops are often of lower quality, who will push forward frontally in order to probe weak spots or get masses of cheap artillery into a better position to grind the enemy down gradually.

Nato combined arms

Troops are trained to a high-level to be able to understand the entire battlefield and operate in coordination with air, armour and artillery on the fly Commanders get troops in flanking positions by using fast communications and high-tech weapons to rapidly and accurately strike threats as they appear. Emphasis is on speed, aggression and outmanoeuvring the enemy.

I may be completely ignorant on battle tactics and doctrinal differences between modern armies, but on a very shallow read I don't see the advantage of needing to train troops to a "high-level to be able to understand the entire battlefield" "on the fly" compared to a doctrine that supposedly relies on less training for troops and mass produced heavy weaponry. Not saying one is necessarily better than the other, but this framing is not helping NATO.

If one were to be snarky about this, they could say that basing your strategy and tactics on the unfounded belief that your people are inherently superior is not a healthy idea.

[–] cfgaussian@lemmygrad.ml 15 points 5 days ago

Nato combined arms

Troops are trained to a high-level to be able to understand the entire battlefield and operate in coordination with air, armour and artillery on the fly Commanders get troops in flanking positions by using fast communications and high-tech weapons to rapidly and accurately strike threats as they appear. Emphasis is on speed, aggression and outmanoeuvring the enemy

It's amazing how arrogant and delusional they still are despite having had almost three years now to observe what happens when you try to use those kinds of tactics. The reason why the Russians don't fight like that in this war is not because they can't but because it's a bad way to fight in this war! These tactics may work in a short war and against an enemy who is vastly inferior but they don't work in a near-peer war of attrition.

This isn't speculative or theoretical, we saw it happen. We saw what happened when Ukraine tried to do that during their vaunted offensives. They employed precisely those kinds of NATO tactics and all it led to was them finding themselves in fire bags and taking horrific casualties. Even if they did manage to rapidly take some land, was the long term cost of that worth it? Has it put them into a better position strategically in the war today?

These western commentators are so convinced of their own superiority, still believe their own bullshit despite evidence to the contrary so much that they need to jump through hoops to explain why their "superior" tactics are not working. And if the western leaders and military decision makers take their cues from these analysts and think the same way then it's no wonder they are losing and will keep losing because they refuse to learn.